Photo illustration by Adam Weinstein; Civil War by US National Guard/Flickr Commons, flag by obeeah13/Flickr Commons
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Got a debt-ceiling migraine, America? Here’s your martial medicine: All the latest developments from the national security world, sure to ease your budget deficit hangover.
The sitrep:
- Remember all those social conservatives saying that if Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, the terrorists would win? The terrorists have won.
- Not all Republicans are against entitlements. Take Alabama, which still collects a special property tax on behalf of its war veterans. Its Confederate war veterans. (“Broadly speaking, almost all taxes have their start in a war of some sort,” a historian explains.)
- Walter Reed Army Medical Center is closing next month. All it took to shutter the place was six years and $2.6 billion. And yet, donors are needed for this $3,500 benefit concert for the soon-to-be-relocated patients.
- Back in 2007, a Marine adviser exposed how the service was ignoring troop requests for life-saving mine-resistant vehicles because they might compete with Humvees and other big-ticket items on the Corps’ wish list. The Marines responded by yanking that whistleblower’s security clearance. But now, several nonprofits are spearheading a public drive to restore the truth-teller’s job and reputation. Here’s how you can help.
- Why did the freshman congressman call the senior congresswoman “vile, unprofessional, and despicable” and “not a lady”? Because THE ARMY, that’s why.
- Sen. Tom Coburn has a not-so-crazy plan to cut defense by $1 trillion. Pay attention, progressives.
- The bad news: Mullah Omar is not, repeat, not dead. Online rumors had him dying of a heart attack, because a Taliban leader’s two natural enemies are infidels and arterial plaque. The good news: Nothing’s more embarrassing for an insurgent than getting his website hacked, right? Right?
- “Reporters Want Petraeus to Be President Real Bad.” Maybe not reporters so much as magazine layout editors. But still.
- The Navy is so cash-strapped, its sailors are swapping spare parts from ship to ship to pass inspections…and more than a fifth of the fleet still isn’t ready to sail. The service is tracking the practice with a formula called the “rate of cannibalisation.” (Of course, when it comes to sailors and cannibals, Monty Python got there first.)
